uncover our heads and reveal our souls
by Gray Doll
Summary: She's like Alice in a smoky Wonderland. [SansaxSandor, modern AU]


Notes: This is my first proper Sandor/Sansa fic. There's something irresistible about this couple (yeah, well, they're technically not a couple, but that's what fanfiction is for) and I don't know why I haven't written anything longer than a few hundred words about them until now. This is a modern AU, because the idea of Sandor and Sansa in the modern world is another thing I love.

* * *

**uncover our heads and reveal our souls**

**.**

**.**

'there's a lit cigarette in the hand of my new angel

she's blowing smoke like halos, and now everybody wants her'

-Evans Blue

**.**

**.**

Sandor Clegane leaves San Diego the night the Lannister estate is stormed by Stannis Baratheon. He leaves behind a mansion swallowed by flames, men hollering and running, and his leather jacket draped over the shoulders of a girl, a little bird clutching a doll and hugging her knees close to her chest in the corner of her bedroom-cage.

He rides away in the night, heading north, and for the first time his motorcycle feels oddly empty now that he's the only one on it. He laughs at himself through the haze of his drunkenness, asks himself what on earth he'd been expecting, convinces himself that merely suggesting he could take the girl away was nothing but a drunk's ramblings.

Six and a half years later, the dust has settled and the Targaryens have overthrown his old masters, and he blows right back in.

Or rather, he searches; he searches for the girl with the hair like the flames that made him run, the girl with the pretty songs and soft twitters. The one whom he gave his jacket to once, like a white knight's cloak (and it's ridiculous, he thinks, because he's anything but).

He finds her in a small town in Louisiana, where she has no history for the Lannisters and their puppets to follow up on (he himself only managed to locate her because of the damned Spider, no matter how much the mere fact makes him want to grit his teeth in frustration).

"You do understand that everyone in the neighborhood is going to start talking about you now," she says casually, her hand still around the door handle. Her eyes are as bright and blue as he remembers them, but something inside them has changed, and he can't quite put his finger on it.

Or maybe he just doesn't want to.

"Why did you come back?" she asks him later, when he's sitting heavily on her too-narrow couch and she's observing him, shoulder set against the door frame.

He gives an unapologetic, yet noncommittal shrug. "If you want me to leave, I'll leave."

This isn't how he had imagined things would go, but then, what had he been expecting? For her to run into his arms, or maybe scream and run away?

Her gaze lingers on his face, for the first time without faltering, before lowering to the floor after several long seconds. "I don't want you to leave. Not again."

**.**

**.**

He watches as she throws what little clothes and other belongings she has accumulated over the years in a single suitcase, leaves a hasty, terribly vague note for the neighbor who has become a very good friend to her in the last couple of months, and makes herself comfortable in the passenger seat of his Citroen.

Not without making a rather playful remark about the lack of a motorcycle or a big, black, intimidating SUV.

"Something tells me we're going to be the talk of the town," she chirps as he turns the key in the ignition.

"You don't seem very upset about it," he says in a raspy voice, starting the car, and she gives a laugh.

It's a pretty sound. Rippling and melodic, but something about it feels a little off – it doesn't sound genuinely happy, but he decides not to concern himself with it. Of course she isn't ecstatic, she's been hunted by some of the worst criminals around for the better part of her teenage life, and surely riding away with him can't be so much better.

But she does it anyway, and he tries to subdue the oddly contented feeling this gives him.

"It's because I'm not." She offers him a big smile, one that makes him stare, because he's never seen it before on her face.

Averting his gaze, his fingers tighten around the steering wheel just as his jeans begin to feel uncomfortably tight as well. "What happened to the bashful little bird, then?"

She shrugs, and props her feet up on the dashboard, a small smirk forming on her lips, as though daring him to reprimand her for it.

"It flew away," she says lightly, pulls a cigarette out of a carton in her jacket pocket and lights it.

Sandor frowns. "Since when do you _smoke_?" he asks like he just met her yesterday, not bothering to mask the surprise in his voice.

She laughs again, resting her head against the leather clad seat, her hair an auburn halo around her face. "I'm old enough to buy them now."

He shakes his head and doesn't say another word. He keeps driving, while trying to decide if he likes the picture of her brimming with smoke and something that looks like excitement or not.

**.**

**.**

Sandor Clegane prefers dingy joints to fancy clubs. He prefers the loud chatters, the bartops that give off splinters if you're not careful enough, the smoke filling the air and the killer, dirty alcohol that is served to the elegant waiters, to the flowing music and the thousand-dollars-a-bottle scotch the Lannisters had forced him to get used to.

Despite all this, he's more than reluctant to take her to the divey bars he likes, because he knows she's a pretty, dainty thing, made for expensive restaurants and velvet red wine.

But it's the little bird that pulls him into a small underground bar one night, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and her feet in high heeled boots, and he tries very hard not to stare at her breasts, straining against the tight fabric of her shirt as they take their seats into the corner farthest from the door.

Her eyes are wide, excited as she looks around, like a little child only just now discovering her senses, like Alice thrust into a murky, smoky Wonderland.

She throws her head back when she laughs and she is more than aware of almost all the men in the bar staring openly at her, eyes dark with want, but she no longer blushes and tries to hide herself, she no longer ducks her head and murmurs her apologies for something she didn't do.

It quickly becomes clear that the Sansa he dragged from that small town isn't the Sansa he left behind six and a half years ago.

And he just doesn't know how the change came for her – if it was a decision made by her, or if it was thrust upon her. He suspects the latter, yet still he can't bring himself to ask her what she's done while he was gone. He can't bring himself to listen to her answers, because he knows they won't let him sleep at night.

But one thing has remained the same, if not intensified. Every night he tries very hard not to succumb and book them only one motel room (with only one double bed), he tries very hard not to stare at her in whatever she's wearing on a given day, be it skin-tight shorts or loose sportswear, he tries very hard not to be heard when she's come to his room because she just can't sleep on her own and he's stormed into the bathroom, hand on his cock and his mind filled with images of her under him, on top of him, _with_ him.

_She's not a little girl any longer_, he tells himself, lying on his back on a screeching bed and staring at the yellowing ceiling. _She's a woman grown, grown and fucking gorgeous, no doubt she's fucked her fair share of men already. Why not you as well, dog?_

But morning comes and she's wearing a white sundress, her hair wet and dripping from her morning shower, and he sees the little girl he left behind all over again, all innocent eyes and naïve airs. And he just can't bring himself to do it.

No matter how she smiles at him, no matter how she even smirks at times like an experienced seductress, he still sees the little bird, and he just can't do it.

But he fucking wants to. He always has.

**.**

**.**

To say he is startled when she starts cursing would be an understatement.

He has only ever known murmured words and gentle courtesies passing her pretty little lips, and when she first says "fuck" he stops in his tracks and stares, half-thinking either he or the world has finally gone completely mad.

But she doesn't even look at him, she merely carries on with her daily routine of pouring milk into her bowl of cereal like nothing happened (yet he sees it; the slightest rosy color rising to her cheeks).

It becomes common occurrence after that. "Fuck," she grunts when she stubs her toe on the bedside table, "I hate this fucking song," she says with disdain when she changes the radio station, "Just calm the fuck down," she huffs when she decides he's being too melodramatic about something she considers trivial.

"Fuck, I need a smoke," she says, slumping down on the couch next to him and looking at him expectantly – and what the hell is he supposed to do? He can't refuse her anything, and he passes his own carton to her, biting the inside of his cheek when she leans her head against his shoulder after that, blowing smoke in the darkness of the motel room as they watch some ridiculously sappy old movie.

"I don't care what the fuck he thinks, I _am_ old enough to drink," she says angrily, crossing her arms tightly about her chest, and he has to spend nearly five minutes half-speaking, half-growling to the bartender before the other man deigns to bring Sansa the vodka she ordered.

It's an hour past midnight, and she's already drunk, has been since they visited the first bar for the night. She's wearing a backless dress and the stiletto heels she bought two days ago, and her pendant is resting on the curve of her breasts. He's hard by the time he half-drags, half-carries her back to the small apartment they have rented, and the way she's laughing next to his ear and has her arms draped over his shoulders isn't helping matters at all.

She reaches up to cup his face when he lays her down on her bed, touching both his good side and the burnt one, and despite himself he takes a sharp intake of breath, his lips parting slightly, the ache in his groin almost unbearable.

Her eyes are hazy, unfocused, and he stills when she props herself on her elbows, brings her mouth close to his neck and whispers "Fuck me."

Time seems to still around him as well, and it feels like hours have passed when he finally blinks, shakes his head, and pushes her back down on the mattress as gently as he can. His insides are burning, his throat is dry, and his resolve wavers.

_She's practically begging you to do it_. _You can make it feel good, dog. She wants it. She wants you._

"You're drunk, little bird. You don't know what you're saying." His voice is a soft growl in the quiet of the night, and she looks up at him with eyes round and glistening.

"Am I not good enough?" she asks him, her voice slightly slurred, and he's almost shaking by the time he stands up, looming over her supine form. He balls his hands into fists, and she swallows.

"Go to sleep, Sansa."

He turns to leave, intending to run to the bathroom, but he hears her shifting on the bed, and he stops once again.

"Why don't you want me?"

He sighs. "We'll do this when _you_ really want me, little bird."

The next day she doesn't speak a word about it. Maybe she doesn't even remember – maybe she does and simply doesn't want to speak about it, which is more than fine, because he doesn't either.

**.**

**.**

One day, he tells her to stop cursing. That it doesn't suit her. She merely snorts and walks away, but he grabs her by the wrist, pulls her backwards until her back almost collides with his chest.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, girl?" he growls, but she meets his glare, blue eyes blazing.

"I'm not a _girl_ anymore," she says sharply, yanking her arm from his grasp. "Stop treating me like one."

"What the hell _happened_ to you?"

He doesn't want to know the answer to that. She steps back, brushes a hair of auburn hair, blown by the wind, away from her face, and narrows her eyes. "_Everything_ happened. And I took your advice. I opened my eyes, and saw the world for what it really is."

She doesn't speak another word to him for three days after that. But when she does, she's all big smiles and rippling laughs again, like nothing ever happened.

**.**

**.**

(She does curse again though, about two months later.)

They're somewhere in Idaho, and she's wincing in pain as he carries her in his arms like a bride all the way back to their trailer, because she's stepped on a rock and cut her heel. He'd scoffed when he saw her wound, a mere scratch against the pale perfection of her skin, but Sansa is such a small, fragile thing, at least physically, even if she stubbornly pretends she was not.

"I told you not to walk around the streets barefoot," he says, but he just can't bring himself to sound angry like he probably should.

She gives a little chuckle, and makes herself comfortable in his arms as they near their temporary accommodation, nuzzling against his chest. "But it was worth it. You should try it too someday."

He rolls his eyes and practically kicks the door open, ducking a little to get inside without banging his head on the door frame, and lowers her down on the two-seat, too-narrow couch.

"Here, little bird." He kneels before her to take a closer look at her superficial little wound, and she bites down on her lower lip, tilts her head slightly to the side.

"You haven't called me that in a long time."

"I thought you didn't like being called little bird," his lips twist ever so slightly upwards, "little bird."

Before he knows what's happening she has bent down and she's pressing her lips against his, warm and soft and tentative, nothing like the bold, all grown Sansa he's come to know in those past few months; her mouth moves against his own like she's afraid he's porcelain and he might break, and it's so ironic he grins into the light kiss before standing, pulling her up with him and placing his hands on her hips, holding her flush against his body.

It's the first time he appreciates the cursing; that day when she's naked and lovely and soft under him, the sunlight trickling through the shutters making her pale skin glow like gold, and the little word leaves her lips as she digs her nails into his back, her head thrown back against the pillows, flames framing her face.

**.**

**.**

"You've changed so much, little bird," he tells her one night like all the others, in a bed like all the others (even though for him every night is singled out and held like a rosary now, because finally the smile reaches her eyes when the lights dim and they're tangled between the sheets).

She shrugs a little, takes a cigarette from the front pocket of his jacket that lays on the floor and balances it between her lips while searching around for a lighter. "Since I was seventeen? Yeah, well, generally that's how it works. People grow up, that's the rule."

She finally finds the lighter, and within seconds she's blowing smoke rings into the air.

"That's not what I meant, Sansa."

She sighs, lying back down, facing the ceiling. "You've just missed things. Coming back doesn't mean you never left. _Sandor_."

He pauses for a beat, sitting up, searching for the right words. She's right. Of course she is. But what the hell was he supposed to do back then? He wouldn't have been able to play the hero, the knight in shining armor, and she hadn't wanted him to either. There really is no fucking point in deluding themselves.

"That sounded very philosophical," he says finally, and it's something between a sigh and a growl.

Instead of answering, she laughs.

**.**

**.**

In Minnesota, she dyes her hair a dark shade of brown.

He stares, then frowns, then rolls his eyes. "Why would you do something so fucking stupid?"

She rolls her eyes as well and takes off her coat, throwing it without much care on the bed. It's not that she's not pretty – Sandor has no doubt she'd look gorgeous even with purple hair or with no hair at all, but there's something about this change that just doesn't sit right with him.

"The ginger hair was boring," she says with a shrug, grabbing yogurt and strawberries from the fridge. "What, you don't like it?"

"You know you're pretty in whatever fucking hair," he says impatiently, sitting down on the counter opposite her. "But this... little bird, it's not... you."

She huffs. "And why do you get away with the cursing but I don't?"

That night he finds her crying in the veranda, curled up with a flimsy shawl around her thin frame, her shoulders quaking with the effort to keep quiet. At first he hovers in the threshold, and he's surprised at his own surprise to see her crying. It's been so long since this last happened (sometimes he tries his damnedest to block the memories of those old days out of his mind; some other times he clings to them like a drowning man), and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do.

"It's alright, little bird, you're alright," he says, as softly as he can, crouching down next to her and wrapping an arm around her, pulling her against him. She lays her head on his chest, and doesn't stop crying until the first crack of dawn.

**.**

**.**

Two days later she tells him the hair dye is temporary, that it'll wash off eventually. About a month later her hair is a bright flame again, and he thinks he just might love fire after all.

**.**

**.**

He starts swiping her packets of cigarettes from her once one year has passed. When she discovers this, instead of furrowing her brow or throwing a tantrum, she laughs (and it's wrong, because it's not melodic, but rather a forced chuckle with a hint of derision).

She sits down on the bed, only in her underwear, and quirks an eyebrow up at him (he remembers her complaining, not too long ago, about how she just couldn't do that). "So, are you going to lecture me about the dangers of smoking? About how I'm slowly killing myself?"

It takes every ounce of his willpower to tear his gaze from her nearly naked body. "No, I'm going to flush this shit down the toilet," he tells her, and he does it.

When he comes out of the bathroom she's leaning against the wall, still wearing nothing but her lacy bra and panties, her hair tumbling loose down her back. "You know that I'm just going to buy another one, right?"

This new Sansa sees everything as a contest, a competition, a _game_. On lonely nights, when she's either angry or bored or just not in the mood and he lies awake and alone on a double bed, he wonders if it was the Lannisters or someone else who spouted this twisted philosophy to her.

The sure thing is, she still hasn't lost her competitive streak.

"I know," he says, and can't bring himself to resist any longer when she presses herself against him and pulls his mouth down to hers.

"Good," she breathes against his lips, and lets him carry her to the bed.

About an hour later she has propped herself on her elbows, a cigarette dangling between her teeth.

"Go outside if you want to smoke," he tells her, a little more gruffly than he would have liked, but she just shakes her head stubbornly.

"Nope."

"It fucking _stinks_, Sansa."

She lets out a laugh that sounds more like a scoff. "Oh, right, I had forgotten how terribly _delicate_ your sensibilities are. And that _you_ haven't smoked in, what, two months?"

He turns his eyes skywards. "Why do you even do it?"

"You mean smoking?"

"Don't play coy with me, girl. Yes, the fucking _smoking_."

She shrugs, a bare shoulder rising and falling nonchalantly. "Because. I started it, I liked it, I continued it. Isn't that how it usually happens?"

"I never thought you were one to ever consider smoking."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't. I didn't quite see the point." She sighs a little, making herself comfortable among the pillows. "My mother always told me smoking makes you look ugly. That it ruins your skin, your hair, your teeth, gives you wrinkles. She aimed for the vanity, you see. Said it makes you look older."

Oh.

Great. Just fucking _great_. "Is that why you do it, then? To look _older_?"

She doesn't reply. She doesn't say a word when she stubs her cigarette out on the floor and curls up in a ball, staying at her side of the bed for the rest of the night.

**.**

**.**

Sansa smokes, wears too much eyeliner, and likes spending her nights in dark joints and motel rooms.

But her eyes, her eyes are still the same. They're big and blue and beautiful, and when she looks up at him at night his breath catches in his throat, because she's still the little bird, _his_ little bird.

Her smile has edges, it has its own corners now, but it's a smile he grows to appreciate – a smile he slowly realizes he can't live without, because on some days (when she slips and forgets her facade) it's still warm and gentle and loving, and it's Sansa, Sansa Stark and not some made up identity meant to trick strangers into seeing someone who does not exist.

It's been two years, _two_ years exactly, when she finally lets him see all the contents of her small suitcase, for the first time. It's been two years, when she finally lets him see that she still has the leather jacket he gave her eight years ago, as if it were a white knight's cloak, and she has it with her wherever they go, from state to state, from motel to motel, from bar to bar.

"I'll stay," she tells him, voice soft and clear, her hands on the sides of his face – both the good and the burnt one. "I'll stay," she tells him, and he doesn't need to hear anything else. "I know that I've changed. All smoke and hard smiles and curses, I don't know if it's for better or for worse – but I'll stay, Sandor. With you. Because I'm still me. And you're still you."


End file.
